Shattered Dreams (18 page)

The man
he was looking at had one burly shoulder propped nonchalantly
against the wall. His rather intent gaze studied everyone who
passed him a little too carefully for comfort.

“’
Ere!” A coal merchant cried when Harry’s carriage suddenly
cut across his path.

Harry
ignored him though, and kept his gaze locked on his wastrel butler.
As he drew alongside, Dandridge noticed him and stood upright
warily. He glanced furtively at the inn door, as though
contemplating whether to dive through it. But, in the end, was left
with little choice but to look back at his angry employer and wait
to hear what he had to say.

“
I don’t believe that it is your day off today, Dandridge,”
Harry drawled in a voice that was cold and ruthless.

“
I came for some vegetables,” Dandridge replied carefully,
trying to ignore the tell-tale mug of ale he held in one beefy
hand.

“
Doesn’t look like a cabbage to me,” Harry
challenged.

Dandridge didn’t reply.

“
I don’t pay you to drink in taverns,” Harry snapped. He
stared at the butler and lifted a querulous brow.
“Well?”

“
Well what?” Dandridge asked with a frown.

“
Where are my vegetables?”

Dandridge glanced about his feet blankly; as though they were
about to miraculously turn into potatoes.

Harry
took out his fob watch and looked down at it. “Tea is due within
the hour. Why are you not at home, getting ready to serve it?” He
eyed the man’s work-shirt and casual trousers pointedly because
they were a far cry from the neatly pressed butler’s uniform he was
required to wear.

Dandridge finally had the good grace to look a little
sheepish. “I don’t think Mrs Dandridge is expecting you for tea,
sir.”

“
Well, you had better damned well put your ale down and get
back to the house to tell her to expect me, hadn’t you? While you
are at it, make sure she does a proper job of tea this time, and
serves something that is palatable, or I will make sure that
neither of you work again.”

Although
he didn’t say as much, Harry rather suspected that the Dandridges’
were able to forge the references they would need to secure them
another job, and wouldn’t be bothered at all if he tossed them
out.

He made
a mental note to mention to Sir Hugo about double-checking the
letters of recommendation his aunt had received, and turned his
attention back to Dandridge, who was busy looking around for
somewhere to put his ale.

“
Back to work man, and hurry.”

Harry
turned to Tilly, Suzanna and Zack. They all stared at him a little
worriedly, as though they had no idea who he was, or what had just
happened. Rather than barrage him with questions though, they
remained silent while he guided the carriage out into the main
street again.

They all
looked at Dandridge as they passed, but nobody spoke until Harry
pulled the carriage to a stop at the top of the hill. From their
vantage point they could see Dandridge strolling toward them, and
Harry took advantage of the opportunity to speak without being
overheard by anyone.

“
I am undertaking an investigation for His Majesty’s
government,” Harry announced quietly.

He
turned sideways in his seat so that he could include Zack and
Suzanna in his explanation, but was aware of the exact point where
his knee touched Tilly’s. Even that small contact, through several
layers of her skirts and his breeches, felt like a shaft of
lightning striking through him, but he couldn’t bring himself to
move way.

“
Are you here because of what is going on at poor house?”
Suzanna asked with eyes that were wide with a mixture of wonder and
horror.

“
No, I am here because they have been stealing from their
employers,” he nodded toward Dandridge. “We think him and his wife
have been stealing money and valuable items from around the houses
they work in.” He sighed and hoped he wasn’t scaring them. “I have
no choice but to take you to the house my colleagues and I are
working from. While I do not believe that either of the Dandridges’
are a direct threat to you, please don’t go anywhere with either of
them. Don’t tell them where you have been, where you are going, or
what you are doing there either. Tell them that you are relatives
of mine who have come for a visit. Tell them anything. I don’t
care. Just don’t tell them the truth, and don’t leave anything you
wish to keep lying around.”

“
They know I am not your relative though,” Tilly reminded him.
Had that fateful meeting between them taken place only a week
ago?

“
I know. Dandridge won’t dare ask me for information because I
have caught him in my study a time or two when he shouldn’t be
there. However, he will have no qualms about asking you. Tell him
that he needs to ask me if he wants any information. That should
shut him up,” Harry grumbled. “Stay in your rooms at night, and
don’t come out to investigate if you hear someone moving around the
house at night.”

He
didn’t say as much, but the last thing he needed was to bump into
Tilly in her night-gown in the middle of the night.

“
Are they the ones responsible for the letter?” That question
opened up a world of hurt for Tilly, whose emotions were already
raw from her recent ordeal, but she had to know.

“
There isn’t anybody else who has access to my desk, or study,
I am afraid. What we don’t know is why they did it; whether they
did it for themselves, or someone paid them to do it.” He gave
Tilly a frank look. “We do know that neither of them looks like the
Mrs Bolsworthy who recommended the fictitious job to you, so I
suspect that someone else is involved.”

“
Do you think it is them who brought me here?” Suzanna asked
tearfully. Her worry increased as she glanced almost fearfully down
the road at Dandridge. “Why?”

“
We don’t know. While I cannot condone you remaining in that
poor house a day longer than you absolutely had to, I will not
ignore the fact that both of you, Tilly and Suzanna, have both been
brought here under the pretence of starting new jobs that really
don’t exist. Those letters were sent from someone in this
town.”

“
But my job wasn’t in Tooting Mallow. The new job I was
supposed to go to was in Malvern.”

“
What happened to you?” Tilly asked with a frown. She watched
Zack slide closer to Suzanna, and hold her hand comfortingly while
Suzanna recounted the details.

“
I caught a post chaise from home. We stopped off in
Leicester. I took a room for the night but didn’t feel at all well.
I went to sleep but, when I woke up, I was here.”

“
Where?” Harry frowned and stared at her.

“
In the tavern in the coaching inn.” She nodded down the main
street behind them.

“
You went to sleep in Malvern, and woke up in the coaching inn
in Tooting Mallow?” Tilly asked, and exchanged a cautious look with
Harry. “Are you sure?”

“
Did you have all of your things on you?” Harry
growled.

Her
answer came as no surprise. “Yes, but I only brought with me the
money I would need for food on my journey. I didn’t have enough to
pay for my room here, or buy a ticket to Malvern.”

“
So you were destitute?” Tilly knew how that felt.

“
Do you have any recollection of how you got here?” Harry
frowned.

Suzanna
shook her head. “I felt groggy for a good day or so afterwards. I
had no way of getting home, or anywhere else. I snuck out of the
tavern without paying for the room, but had nowhere else to
go.”

Harry
and Tilly looked at each other. “The Poor House,” they said in
unison.

“
Good Lord,” Tilly whispered. “Do you think the third person
is linked to the poor house?”

Harry
did, but had no idea why the Dandridges’ would want their victims
to reside there.

“
How long have you been there Suzanna?”

“
A little over a year now, I think,” Suzanna answered with a
frown. “Why?”

Harry
sighed and looked at each of them sternly. “Because I just wonder
how many other people like you two are still in there.” He nodded
across the valley toward the huge mausoleum.

Silence
settled over everyone for a moment while they all sat with their
thoughts and memories.

Harry
glanced at Zack and sensed that his story was a little different.
However, without raking everything to the surface, he had no idea
if the boy’s mother had actually been buried, or was still alive
somewhere. That being the case, why had they kept Zack at the poor
house?

When
everyone stared blankly at him, Harry sighed. “My colleagues and I
will keep you under constant guard. Suzanna, once we have this case
solved, one of my colleagues will escort you back to your family.
Meantime, it is safest if you remain with us, along with you,
Zack.”

“
I don’t have any family to go to,” Zack said
bluntly.

“
Don’t worry about it right now. All will be well, I can
assure you.” Harry didn’t say as much but he would adopt the boy
himself if he had to. Anything but allow him to be moved to another
institution.

He
turned his attention to Tilly. “You need to stay with
me.”

He quite
deliberately didn’t tell her how long for, but rather suspected
that their time together would go far beyond the end of his
investigation in Tooting Mallow.

“
I need your help,” he said to Tilly, then turned to look at
Zack and Suzanna. “Yours too, if you are willing?”

“
What do you want us to do?” Zack gasped and nodded pointedly
toward Dandridge, who was nearly at the top of the hill. “He is
here.”

Harry
left the conversation mid-flow, and clicked the horse into a
walk.

“
Don’t discuss anything while the Dandridges’ are in the
house. They have no idea who we are, or what we are up to.” He shot
them all a dark look. “If we have any chance of unravelling this
particular mystery, we have to keep quiet about everything.
Agreed?”

They all
nodded and remained silent for the rest of the journey back to the
Rectory. Once they had pulled up outside the Rectory, Harry helped
everyone down and escorted them into the house.

Tilly
stared at the building and quickly blanked out the memory of that
fateful day when her life had changed so drastically. Instead, she
bravely smiled her thanks at Harry, and walked into the warmth of
the main hallway.

Harry
briefly considered whether to leave the carriage out front for
Dandridge to see to, but had far too much respect for his horse to
do that. Instead, he stalked into the sitting room and yanked hard
on the bell pull, then waited impatiently for his lazy housekeeper
to slouch her way into the hallway.

“
Get yourself together woman, if you want to keep your job,”
Harry snapped when she finally appeared.

He
watched an affronted scowl appear on the woman’s face for a moment,
but didn’t give a damn if she walked out. It would be something of
a relief if she did, and took her worthless husband with her, not
least because neither of them could then be a threat to Tilly.
There was something within him that warned him it wasn’t a good
idea for Tilly, Suzanna, or Zack to remain under the same roof of
the Dandridges’, even with the Star Elite on guard.

“
We have guests. Sort out rooms for everyone. Clean sheets,
fresh water. Make sure the rooms are polished and swept. Then set
about making tea for everyone, and I mean a proper tea, not that
fetid muck you usually throw in a saucer. Make sandwiches and
cake.”

“
Don’t have no cake,” the housekeeper grunted.

“
Doesn’t surprise me,” Harry snorted. “Tell me something
Dandridge? What do you do with your day here? As I see it, you are
supposed to be the housekeeper, yet you do no cleaning. You are
supposed to provide meals, yet cannot cook. You are supposed to run
the house; but it is slowly sinking into decline. It is clear that
you have never done a proper day’s work in your life. So why do I
pay you? What do you do all day besides sit around, and eat
my
food out of
my
kitchen, and snoop
around
my
things?”

As he
spoke, he watched worry start to cloud the woman’s bilious eyes. He
made a point of locking gazes with her, and conveyed in that one,
stark look, all of the threats that he didn’t want to issue in
front of his already traumatised guests.

Harry
leaned toward her menacingly. “If you want to remain in my house,
sort yourself out woman or I will have you out on your ear. Right
now, get the food organised, then see to the rooms, and get that
worthless husband of yours to help you.”

When
Dandridge remained where she was for a moment, Harry lifted his
brows querulously.

“
Now, woman!” he bellowed.

To his
utter disgust, the housekeeper slouched back to the kitchen as
slowly as she had arrived, undoubtedly to grumble at her
husband.